St. Paul daily globe., 1887-11-21
Graveyard Insurance at Elk
hart Is the Cause Of
His Trouble.
A Trick by Which He Claims
to Prove the Company to
Be q Fraud.
Commissioner ShandpeW In
SiSts That He Will Not
Be BulldOZed.

that kind? are some of the subjects that
are just now being very hOtly discussed
in the different insurance journals of
the country. Prominent among these
journals is one called Insurance, pub
lished in New York, which has been
making very determined onslaught on
Insurance Commissioner Shandrew, of
this state, ever since he authorized this
Old Peoples association to do business
in this state early last summer. This
contest has been getting warmer and
warmer ever since, until last week when
Insurance contained the following: ''If
Commissioner Shandrew doesn't smash
that murder mill Insurance will smash
him."
About the 1st of October the editor of
insurance adopted novel plan of Sc
curing what he considers to be conclu-
sive evideIieet6f the fraudulent charac-
ter of the company. The way he took
to do this was to send all application in
regular form to the home office of the
company asking for insurance on the
life of his Wife'S aunt, aged seyenty-Six.
The application was approved and a
policy was soon made out and in the
possession of Davis, or as called him
self, Henry n. Bartlett, taking the
name Of his nephew for that purpose. a
la Anthony ComStock. Rachel Miller
was the lady'S name used, and her eX-
lStence was SOIely in
THE MIND OF DAVIS,
as the following quotation from Insur-
ance will show: 1T is proper to explain
that the letters to Secretary Lumbert,
the application and the medical certifi-
cate were each and all written in this
Office by the editor of Insurance, and
that he used the name of his nephew "a
fine boy, fourteen years OF age, and who
has never been marrieD as that of the
proposed beneficiary. The address in
Greenville is the editors residence. As
before remarked, there is no Middle
town. n. j., nor any Rachel Miller, nor
any S. ID. Smith, M. ID.
One great point wherein Davis over
reached himself is in his own words
where he says mo notice was sent to
the insured, and that there is no place
named Middletown. n. j." There is
place of that name in New Jersey, and
there the officers of the insurance COM
pany sent a letter directed to Rachel
Miller. which letter has been returned
bearing the postmark Middletown, n.
j., and marked ''uncalled for"
Further on in the same article he
quotes from the agreement which ap-
pears on the back of all policies issued
by the company. sit constitutes Rachel
Miller, of AIiddletown, n. j., member
of the society and StipulateS as follows:
Provided always that, if death of said.
member occurs within ninety days from.
date of approval of the application upon
which this certificate is issued, the ben
eficiary or beneficiaries herein named,
or the legal holders hereof, shall receive
only such an amount as has actually
been paid TO the society in cash, on ac-
count of this certificate, with an addi-
ton of 10 per cent of the same.
IF DEATH OCCURS
after ninety days from said date, said
beneficiary or holder hereof shall re-
ceive four shares of the dividend fund
collected for the pool in which the proof
of death of said member is approved by
the society, and so on increasing until
after three years the full amount
will be paid to Henry n. Bartlett, the
nephew OF said member" He dismisses
this with the remark: ''ThiS is not very
intelligible. but it would be easy enough
to show that it embOdies simply and
purely gambling scheme without the
first element of insurance in it." Com
missioner Shandrew looks at this point
in a different light in his interview,
which is added below: Davis ends the
Rachel Miller article as follows:
''Shall we add word for the especial
benefit of Insurance Commissioner
Shandrew, of Minnesota? We will.
The like of what we have done he could
have done, and thus have settled to
positive certainty that the sOciety~hich
he has licensed to traffic in thin blood
and old bones in his state. and which he
has officially and publicly certified as
honest and deserving, is utterly unfit to
have an existence anywhere, is a GAM
bling combination in direct contraven-
tiOn of sound policy as declared by every
judicial authority III the civilized world,
is standing
MENACE TO THE LIVES
it pretends to insure, is an infamous
libel upon the name and work of life
insurance, and should be outlawed by
every state insurance official. 1t is
barely possible that in giving this cor
porate conspiracy license and in falsely
certifying its good character he erred
through ignorance and did not act cor
ruptly: We will give him the
struction-though it is hard to
believe that he can have been honestly
blind to so fragrant an infamy-and as
sumo that he simply made mistake.
We tell him now that it is high time to
correct that mistake. He can no longer
plead ignorance. If he could, ignorance
in such case is crime. 1t is his duty
to know The means or knowing are
and every day in this year of grace have
been constantly within his reach, under
his very hand. 1t is beyond the shadow
of doubt that in the state of Mime
sofa, with not half the labor that would
be involved in the examination of a
township mutual, he could discover 500
cases of SO-called insurance by this Elk
hart atrocity quite as tiagitious as the
one which we have made out. Let him
have regard to his oath of Office and do
his sworn duty! 1t is as certain as death
and the Judgment that he must either
drive the Old Peoples Mutual Benefit
society of Elkhart, Ind, out of Mime
sofa or himself be driven from Office in
disgrace"
COMMISSIONER SHANDREW.
eyes, have seen every issue of In
surance,'" said Commissioner Shan
drew to a GLOBE reporter yesterday
afternoon, land l want to say that In
surance' can't run the insurance de-
partment of Minnesota While l am at
the head of it. i am carrying out the
Ills ulduCO laws VI viz oItlIO 90 my al z
on the statute books. This Old Folks
company has been doing business in
this state over two years, and l have
not heard one word of complaint against
them. | did not admit them at that
time. They were licensed to do business
in Minnesota two years ago last August
on complying with the law. l propose
to be governed by the laws of Mime
sofa, and not by the threatSSpf In
surance.' The case in question is
simply forgery, and all life insurance
companies have been defrauded in the
same way. AS soon as this came out l
wrote to Elkhart, demanding full eX-
PLANTATION, and received most salts
factory one. The application in question
came to them properly filled out, the
signatures being in several styles of
penmanship, and, new man being in